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Macron’s party partly relies on candidates from other camps
Emmanuel Macron has announced new elections for the French parliamentary chamber. Photo
© Urs Flueeler/KEYSTONE/EDA/POOL/dpa
French President Macron dissolved the National Assembly in response to the defeat of his liberal forces in the European elections. The center camp is taking a special approach in the new elections.
In the fight against right-wing nationalist forces and the left, the French president’s centre-right camp Emmanuel Macron also relied on candidates from other political groups in the parliamentary elections. In 65 of the 577 constituencies, they therefore did not nominate their own candidate for the new election of the French National Assembly, as the Renaissance party announced.
“There are some constituencies (…) where we know that our candidates are not best placed to prevent the victory of the extremists,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on RTL. In these cases, we support another candidate.
Why are there new elections?
In response to the defeat of his liberal forces in the European elections and the landslide victory of the right-wing nationalists, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and announced new elections for the French parliamentary chamber in two rounds for June 30 and July 7. Macron’s presidency is not at stake.
The National Assembly is one of two French parliamentary chambers. The members are elected according to the majority voting system. Whoever receives more than half of the votes cast in their constituency gets a seat in parliament, provided this corresponds to at least a quarter of the registered voters there. However, only very few manage to do this in the first round. The majority of seats are awarded in a run-off vote in the second round. The person with the most votes wins there.
Like Macron, Prime Minister Attal portrayed the current government camp as a guarantor of stability. Both the left-wing alliance, which also includes the left-wing party La France Insoumise, which Macron describes as extreme, and the right-wing nationalist Rassemblement National around Marine Le Pen would be a catastrophe for the country, said Attal.
Attal at RTL